


Sightseeing

by saltyfeathers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 23:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3268346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltyfeathers/pseuds/saltyfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas talk history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sightseeing

**Author's Note:**

> I was talking with a friend and she brought up Dean and Cas and Europe so really this is her fault. Thanks, Claire. 
> 
> Takes place sometime after season 8.

In a truly strange turn of events, Dean and Cas and Sam end up in Europe.

Well. Not so strange if you recall the small, rather insignificant fact that Dean is softer than the inside of a teddy bear. When Dean mentioned taking Cas to Europe because, “it’s not like the guy’s had the best time ever being human,” Sam’s jaw may have been dropped off the side of a building. Dean had hastily added, because he’s Dean, that “it’s like a ‘sorry you’re friends with the Winchesters’ present. Y’know? Because we’re apocalypse bringers and stuff.”

Sam didn’t tell Dean that he didn’t have to justify wanting to do something nice for Cas. After reattaching his jaw, he smiled faintly and said, “Yeah, that’s actually a really good idea.”

So they went to Europe. Dean had to pop an almost illegal amount of sleeping pills to make it through the flight, their airline lost Sam’s suitcase during a connection, and Cas dropped his cell phone in the airplane toilet because he got surprised when it flushed so violently, but they made it to Europe in one piece.

Almost as soon as the plane touched the tarmac, Sam was off on his own, blazing through the sights like a freight train on steroids, hardly sleeping a wink, hair in a bun, nary a worry in his nerdy heart. Dean wondered aloud more than once if they should have sent word ahead to the entire continent that Sam was on his way and ready to see more sights than anyone has seen before.   

Dean, and to Dean’s surprise, Cas, end up taking things much more slowly. Maybe it’s being away from the States, but fucked up jet lag aside, Dean’s been sleeping well in their various cozy (tiny) lodgings. After the second night, they decide to switch up the sleeping arrangements because Sam is a machine and Dean and Cas are still getting their sea legs, so they check into a separate room and make do with the lone double bed that greets them. With men Dean and Cas’ size, cramming into a double bed together and keeping the standardized amount of space between them turn out to be mutually exclusive options, meaning it doesn’t take long before they both say fuck it and Dean becomes a little spoon. He blusters for about two seconds, and then Cas flutters a hand onto his hip and he shuts up real fast.

“Conservation of space, right?” Cas mumbles into the nape of his neck, and Dean wonders if they can hear his heart _thump thump_ over in Germany.

The problem starts when Dean and Cas actually get to visiting all the historical sites in the surrounding areas.  While Dean has a cursory interest in history, Cas is the guy who _lived_ it. Since this is Cas’ vacation and all, Dean’s vowed to just follow him around everywhere and maybe chip in an opinion or two when it comes time to celebrate the day’s festivities at the local pub. But for the most part, Cas is in the driver’s seat here.

But it’s not that that bothers him.

It creeps up on him in little eddies. When Cas smiles fondly at this monument or that, and Dean knows he’s reliving one memory or another associated with it. Or, when Cas’ smile tends towards the bittersweet melancholy, and Dean gets afraid if he knocks on Cas it’ll echo back at him. One day, in the middle of Wales, Cas stops abruptly mid-step, squinting down at the ground like it stole his firstborn.

“Uh,” Dean says, glancing at all the passersby since they’re stopped in the middle of a busy sidewalk. “We’re holding up traffic here, Cas.”

Cas doesn’t pay him any attention. He bends down and presses a hand to the pavement.

“This exact spot,” he says reverently. “I walked here more than six hundred years ago. Right here.”

Dean opens his mouth, and then closes it.

“Oh,” he says, suddenly feeling peculiar and less than helpful.

Cas slowly stands back up, meeting Dean’s eye.      

“So much has changed,” he says neutrally.

Dean swallows past a lump in his throat.

“Long time,” he manages to say.

Cas glances back down at his feet.

“I suppose it has been,” he agrees, like it hadn’t originally occurred to him.

The rest of their day is nice in theory, but Dean doesn’t know what the hell to do with this horrible _something_ pressing down on him. That night, Cas runs a gentle hand down his back and asks what’s wrong, but Dean doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know what to say.

The next day, they go visit Stonehenge, and that’s when Dean figures it out. He watches Cas watch Stonehenge, and thinks, _that’s it_. When they collapse into bed that night, Dean turns around so they’re face to face. Cas watches him.

“You’ve been very quiet these past few days,” he says, smiling very faintly. “I find your lack of lewd comments unsettling.”

Dean swallows, and doesn’t know what to say again. Now that he knows the problem, it’s become a matter of talking about it or not.

“It’s-” Dean licks his lips. “it’s nothing,” he tries to brush it off. “It’s stupid,” Even though he knows it’s not.

“If you think it’s stupid then it’s not nothing,” Cas prompts him. He reaches forward and gently entwines his fingers in the front of Dean’s t-shirt, idly playing with it. “Talk to me.”

Dean sighs, pressing his tongue into his cheek for a moment.

“I didn’t know what it was at first,” he starts. “It was weird, because something felt _off_ , but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Every time we went somewhere, I would watch you just… I don’t know. Be you.” He trails off, scrubbing at his jaw in discomfort. His other hand is under the pillow that he’s lying on.

“Keep going,” Cas encourages quietly.

Dean puts his hand back by his side awkwardly, not sure what to do with it. Cas reaches out and takes hold of it, entwining his fingers with Dean’s.

“I realized it was this place,” Dean admits, “this place” meaning everywhere, basically. “It’s so old, and you’re so old, and that’s compatibility, y’know? Like. You’re eternal. You’re forever.”

“I _was_ ,” Cas corrects, his voice heavy. “Not anymore.”

“Right. Sorry. Yeah. But I think that’s part of it, too,” Dean posits. “Sometimes you just looked at the stuff we were looking at and you were so _sad_. Sometimes you were happy. Sometimes both. And I would watch you looking at whatever, and you were _remembering_ stuff. Good times, bad times, but I’d bet most of those times were a long ass time before I was born.”

Cas is looking at him sadly, and Dean thinks, this fucker’s already figured it out. Of course he has. He’s the one who was ancient and forever and incomprehensible.

Well, he’s still incomprehensible as a human, but Dean finds that more endearing than anything.

“Thinking about everything you are and have ever been, though,” Dean shakes his head. “I don’t get it. I’ll never get it. I’ll never understand.” He goes very still and stares hard past Cas. “It must be so lonely. You know everything about me and I know barely anything about you.”

Cas’ gaze is knowing, and Cas has known this for years, probably. Cas went into this with the firm understanding that he would know Dean inside and out, and Dean could only know parts of him. Dean just can’t be _enough_ for Cas. He looks at Cas and Cas is Stonehenge, Cas is every lost piece of art and every message in a bottle that never reached its destination. Cas is virtually unknowable. He is history incarnate.

“I’m a blip on your radar,” Dean spits out, and Cas’ hand immediately tightens around his. “I’m a drop in the ocean compared to what you’ve lived. I’m nothing to you, Cas. I can never be what you need.”

“What I need is _you_ ,” Cas informs him. “Just to clear that part up quickly.”

“But Cas, I’m not-”

Cas lets go of Dean’s hand and drops his shirt, and Dean thinks, I fucked it all up. Of course I did.

And then Cas cradles Dean’s face in his palms.   

“You’re right,” Cas says, then firmly adds, “ _For the most part_.” He strokes the delicate skin under Dean’s eyes with his thumbs, his own gaze almost unbearably fond. “Barring the whole becoming human thing, I knew what I was getting myself into when I fell for you. Maybe not consciously, but on some level, I knew. I was prepared to face the consequences of falling for a human.” He lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. “And I did.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Dean says.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Cas shifts a little closer on the bed, refusing to break eye contact.

“You’re not a blip, Dean,” he says with conviction. “If anything, you’re my benchmark.” Cas frees his hands once more and goes back to Dean’s hands. He tugs Dean’s arm out from under the pillow and holds both of Dean’s hands in between his.

“I think back to the construction of the Sphinx and ask myself, is that as impressive as the freckles splayed across your cheeks? Does the Great Wall of China or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon compare to the kindness in your soul?” Cas tilts his head, a considering look on his face. “Well, no, I suppose, because a wall and a garden are inanimate objects that are neither kind nor cruel.”

Despite himself, Dean snorts.

“Thanks, Cas.”

Cas shakes his head.

“You misunderstand me,” he says. “The answer is still no, Dean. There is no comparison. You are wonderfully, incredibly, inconceivably incomparable. I count myself lucky to be sitting here beside you today, tomorrow, the day after that. Of all the things in all the histories of all the worlds that have been built, the day I rescued you from hell and pieced you back together, rebuilt you one atom at a time, is undoubtedly the most important. Perhaps not to the people who built the Sphinx or the Great Wall or the Hanging Gardens. But to me, Dean Winchester?” Cas smiles, and Dean has to extract a hand so he can wipe the back of it across his watery eyes. “You are the ocean. It’s everything else that is the drops.”

Dean stares across the pillow at Cas, and can feel the tear that escaped out of the far corner of his eye dampening the fabric under his cheek. He rests his free hand on Cas’ waist, seeking warm skin, and he kisses Cas on a tiny bed in a tiny bedroom in a tiny country, and thinks, I will never be kissing a memory.  


End file.
